


Warm Ears, Warm Heart

by mahons_ondine



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Arthur is no fun, Blizzards & Snowstorms, Eames-centric, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 08:32:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5821501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mahons_ondine/pseuds/mahons_ondine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the first serious blizzard Eames has been in, and he is determined to have a good time.  Is Arthur just determined to ruin his fun, or will he actually lighten up for once?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warm Ears, Warm Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This is essentially unedited, and completely unbetaed. I'll probably come back and clean it up, but I'm heading back into the office tomorrow and I wanted to post this before my snow holiday was done. I really enjoyed writing it, but I always enjoy writing Arthur and Eames even if they won't just behave and give me pure fluff. The fluff will appear though, never fear.

                Eames was excited.  More than excited, actually.  Eames was incandescent.  It wasn’t that he loved cold, or really even snow.  Certainly no more than he loved the hot wet heat of Mombasa during the rainy season, or the foggy drizzle of London in most seasons.  It was just that he liked new things, especially extreme things.  I mean, he was a criminal, mostly a thief, for a living—adrenaline was always a welcome addition to his day.  Now look, you might be saying to yourself, ok that Eames is a little unhinged, and that’s really alright, but what exactly is adrenaline inducing about a snowstorm?   And that’s . . . well it’s fair.  He’s warm and dry.  They have plenty of water and coffee and some food, and frankly, the warehouse is in Brooklyn—they aren’t going to lose power.   All the power lines are buried, so it’s basically like a normal day at the warehouse/office, and that’s pretty much that. 

Except that it _isn’t_.  There’s this nervous excited energy in New York.  Everyone is stocking up on the essentials—boxed pasta, chocolate, and wine—and preparing to watch their beautiful (sometimes dirty) city get blanketed by clean, white snow.  At least a foot of it, maybe two.  And that’s just fantastic.  Eames has never lived anywhere seriously cold.  He grew up in the UK, and since he left he’s flitted about, but he’s mostly stayed in the Southern hemisphere.  Mombasa, Thailand, Peru—none are exactly known for their winters.  He has been to places with a great deal of snow, but he’s never watched a gray world turn white.  It’s beautiful, and Eames likes beautiful things. 

And there’s another thing too.  Eames is friendly.  He’s outgoing, and charming, and fairly well-loved even by the people he robs blind.  But he’s a forger.  He plays a part so often that he sometimes loses himself and he can’t figure out who he is anymore.  He just adjusts who he is to his companions’ expectations, and he tries to please.  He doesn’t always do that with people he works with, though, and with the inception crew, excepting Dom Cobb, of course, he never does it.  He feels more like himself with Yusuf and Ariadne and Arthur than he does when he’s alone.  They remind him who he is.  Maybe they shouldn’t, because they know some of his biggest secrets, and it’s not really safe to get that close to anyone (again, Dom Cobb is an excellent example).  But Eames likes risks, and the safety he feels with them is misguided, and probably crazy, and a huge risk.  He relishes it anyway.  And he’s spending the entire weekend cooped up with them during a blizzard. 

It’s going to be fantastic.  Eames has plans, beautiful, lovely, blizzard party plans.  They won’t get to do the job on time, and they’ve been working pretty much non-stop since inception. They deserve a break.  A nice, boozy, relaxing little break for a day.  At least Eames thinks they deserve a break.  Arthur? Not so much. 

Eames tries to work.  He really does.  They don’t actually have that much to do (and Eames really is limited by the storm—can’t follow around a mark if they aren’t going anywhere).  Somehow Arthur still finds things to do.  Yusuf seems to mostly be tinkering with their already perfect compounds.  Ariadne is curled up in a pile of blankets alternately going under to build, and napping.  Arthur hasn’t gotten the lazy day memo, however, and he’s furiously tapping away at his laptop and working himself up into a froth.  Eames decides that it’s time to bring out the wine and nibbles before anyone loses their head, and the response is underwhelming to say the least.  Yusuf doesn’t drink very much.  Eames knows this, but they’re supposed to be celebrating.  At least Yusuf eats a few crackers.  Ariadne just takes approximately 90% of the chocolate and the PASIV, and heads off to commune with her architecture in one of the interior rooms they’d set up as bedrooms.  Arthur lifts his head from the page, gives Eames’ spread the side eye, and goes right back to work. 

Eames will not be deterred, though.  They are going to have fun, dammit, and relax and talk.  He pops the cork on the wine and pours out a glass.  He offers the first one to Yusuf, but he declines. 

“New girlfriend. Bit of a proper conservative Muslim.  Doesn’t want me drinking.”

“And you went for her?”

“You haven’t seen the legs on her, brother.  I would do a lot more than not drink for her. “ 

Eames shrugs and offers the wine to Arthur.  He has to slide right up to his desk and put the glass down at eye level before Arthur notices.  And notice he does.  Arthur puts his pen down and glares up at Eames.

“I’m working, Mr. Eames.”

“Come on! Relax, darling.  Surely you let loose sometimes?”

“Why would I do so with you?  This is a job, you’re my colleague.  This is not a pleasure cruise or a party or a joke.  Now if you’ll excuse me,” Arthur huffs, and turns back to his work. 

Eames chugs the glass right then and there.  He puts the glass down on the table, and trades it in for the rest of the bottle.  Then, he curls up in Ariadne’s abandoned nest of blankets and proceeds to morosely down the rest of the wine.  He’s considering starting on a second bottle, but the blankets are very comfortable, and he’d have to walk back over to where Arthur is sitting. 

He sighs. 

It’s too far, and he’s a little drunk now.  And he’d known.  He had known that Arthur was a workaholic, and a bit of a prick.  But he’d thought, well, that maybe after inception things were different.  They felt different.  At least they felt different to him.

Eames sighs and pulls himself to standing, and walks over to the abandoned party spread, studiously avoiding looking at Arthur.  Most of the food is gone, and it looks like Yusuf left with it. He hadn’t realized he’d left.  Great job, he thinks, so caught up in feeling gloomy about Arthur, that you ignore your actual friend.  He sighs, popping the cork on a second bottle. 

“What is it now?”

Eames looks up, startled, “huh?”

“You have been sighing.  What’s the matter now?”

Eames almost snaps that he doesn’t know why Arthur would even care.  They’re not friends, after all.  It’s just a job, and Arthur can bloody well leave him alone and let him sigh and drink in peace if he can’t be arsed to actually care one whit about a man who would do—Eames cuts himself off there, not willing to even think it.  He offers instead:

“Yusuf ate the food.  I’m hungry?”

“Yusuf ate all the food?”

“Well, I . . .  I guess I didn’t get very much.  I think I’ll just go out and get some. “

Eames plunks down the wine bottle and heads off in search of shoes and coat.  A walk will do him good.  Get him away from Arthur, maybe he can actually get something to eat.  Besides, he should enjoy something about the blizzard. When he returns, though, Arthur is standing by the remains of the spread and steadily downing wine.  In his coat and boots and scarf, and earmuffs.

“Uh…”

“Are you ready to go?”

“What?”

“You’re drunk.  You didn’t think I’d let you wander off into the snow alone, did you?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You’ll probably walk into a snowdrift, decide to take a nap, and freeze to death.  I’m coming.” 

“Then why are _you_ drinking?”

“I’m preparing”

“You do know that drinking actually _lowers_ your body temperature, correct?”

“Yes, Mr. Eames, I’m aware.  I’m not preparing for the cold, I’m preparing for the company.”

“Kiss my arse,” Eames grits out, and he stomps off into the night. 

The snow is thick on the ground, and it’s still falling in soft clumps.  The wind is whipping the snowdrifts into glittering peaks, covering cars and steps and trees.  Ripples are etched into the snow drifts, looking more like pure white sand dunes than frothy mounds of snow.  Eames enjoys stomping all over the crisp untouched snow.  He should be able to lose Arthur, but he’s drunk, and the snow is a little slippery. 

“Come on, Eames,” shouts Arthur, “stop being ridiculous.” 

Eames ignores him.

“It was just a joke.  What’s a joke between friends?”

Eames whirls on him. 

“Don’t you mean colleagues? “

“Well, yes, but—“

“This is a job, Arthur,” says Eames, as he attempts to scale a snowdrift at the street corner. 

“Are you really this upset just because I didn’t want to indulge in your little wine and cheese party?”

Eames jumps off the edge of the snowdrift and whirls around to face Arthur.  He’s finished, quite frankly.  He doesn’t need this.  And he doesn’t deserve this, and he was just trying to do something nice.  And it’s not wrong for him to have feelings.   He can’t help it if he isn’t a perfect, precise little robot like Arthur.  He whirls around to tell Arthur all of these things.  To finally let out the resentment and frustration that has been bubbling in him for over an hour now.  And then it all leaves him in a whoosh, and he can’t hold on to even the last little bit of his anger, because when he whirls around and lunges into Arthur’s space, Arthur goes arse over teakettle into the snowdrift. 

Eames is a strong man, but he is not strong enough to watch Arthur tumble backwards into three feet of snow and stay angry.  He looks so ridiculous and disheveled.  The earmuffs are lying two feet away and one of his shoes is hanging off his foot, and he’s spluttering and coughing though a mouthful of snow, and Eames thinks it’s the sweetest thing he’s ever seen.  And he just has to laugh. 

“Stop laughing and help me up,” demands Arthur. 

And Eames can’t.  He’s so gone on this sweet, angry, prick of a man.  He eventually gets his giggles under control and leans over Arthur and reaches out to help him up.

It seems, though, that Arthur is the one who is furious, now.  He’s like a wet cat.  He’s growling and spiting, and angry, and instead of standing up and trying to regain a little piece of his dignity, he yanks Eames into the snow and starts to pummel him.  Eames doesn’t even fight back.  He just lets Arthur shove at him and toss snow at him, and he laughs and he laughs.  Finally, Arthur tires, and he collapses back into the snow. 

Sighing, he asks, “What is so damn funny?”

“You are, darling.”

“Me?!”

Eames grins, and rolls through the snowdrift, giddy from the fight.  He gets to his knees next to Arthur, and cups his bright pink face between his gloved hands. 

“Look at you.  Just look at you. “ 

“What,” breathe Arthur. 

“I knew you could relax, darling.  I just didn’t know I would have to fight you to achieve it.”

Eames grins down at Arthur, still panting from the fight.  He’s soaked and cold, and happier than he’s been in a very long time.  He isn’t calculating.  He isn’t reflecting a mark’s desire’s back at them. He just is and is and is. 

He strokes Arthur’s cheeks softly with leather clad fingers.  And then Arthur is rearing up, and Eames is momentarily stunned, and a bit frightened.  Arthur is very competent and more than a little frightening when he wants to be.  He isn’t starting another fight, though; no, he’s bowling Eames over onto his back and climbing on top of him and kissing him so furiously that Eames can’t breathe or think or move.  After a moment Arthur realizes Eames isn’t actually kissing him back, and he goes to pull away, but Eames, his brain finally having caught up, hauls Arthur back. 

“No, darling.  Don’t go.  This is perfect,” he says between kisses. 

Arthur takes him at his word, and proceeds to strip him down to the bone with his kisses.  He kisses Eames until he’s groaning and gasping and shaking.  He pulls back to stare at Eames, and realizes that perhaps the shaking didn’t actually have anything to do with the kisses.  At least, if the chattering teeth are any indication, Eames is more cold than anything else.  Arthur extricates them both from the snowdrift, and proceeds to drag Eames back in the direction of the warehouse. 

“What about my food?” Eames whines. 

Arthur tugs his arm, “If you’re very good, and come with me now I might have something you can get your hands and mouth on. “ 

“Petal, you’re filthy!” 

Arthur grins back at Eames, and Eames follows him for about half a block, gazing in awe at him before he grimaces and pulls his hand from Arthur’s. 

“Wait here.” 

Eames takes off back towards their snow drift, slipping through the snow.  He climbs on top of the much depleted mountain of snow for a moment, then leans down, plucks something out of the snow, and runs back towards Arthur. 

“Eames! If I freeze my dick and balls off you won’t have very much to put your mouth on!”

“I’m here, I’m here,” Eames shouts, skidding to a stop in front of Arthur. 

“What was that all about?”

Eames grins, and holds up Arthur’s abandoned ear muffs. 

“You look so sweet in them!” he exclaims, placing them on Arthur’s head, and pinching his cheeks.  “You look darling, darling.” 

Arthur rolls his eyes, turns on his heel and marches back to the warehouse with Eames trailing behind him.  He’s running his fingers over the soft fur of the earmuffs, though, and he can’t hide the dimples that appear on his cheeks and just won’t go away. 


End file.
